CUORE: First results and prospects

Abstract

CUORE is the first bolometric tonne-scale experiment aiming at the investigation of neutrinoless double-beta (0ν2β) decay of 130Te. The cryogenic commissioning followed by the detector installation and cool down took place during 2016. After the optimisation of all the detectors, the data-taking started in spring 2017. We report about the results of the first dataset acquired in May, which led to a limit on the 0ν2β half-life of 130Te of 6.6×1024 yr. An upgrade of CUORE, named CUPID, is planned to improve the 0ν2β-decay sensitivity via passive and active background reduction and crystal enrichment. Some technologies for CUPID are currently under study and two of them are presented here, involving the detection of Cherenkov and scintillation light emitted by enriched 130TeO2 and Li1002MoO4 crystals respectively. This will allow us to reject the currently dominant α background.